A major objection to the study of virtue asserts that the empirical psychological evidence implies traits have little meaningful impact on behavior, as slight changes in situational characteristics appear to lead to large changes in virtuous behavior. We argue in response that the critical evidence is not these effects of situations observed in…

The neo-Kohlbergian model revises and extends Lawrence Kohlberg's model of moral reasoning development to better reflect advances in research and theory. In moving from Kohlberg's global stage model to a multi-process description of moral functioning, these modifications are most evident in the ways in which moral thinking is described,…

The ethics assessment industry is currently dominated by the second version of the Defining Issues Test (DIT2). In this article, we describe an alternative assessment instrument called the Sphere-Specific Moral Reasoning and Theory Survey (SMARTS), which measures the respondent's level of moral development in several respects. We describe…

"What are you doing?" and "How is it going?" are foundational questions we can ask of agents. They elicit answers that illuminate aspects of well-doing, or felicitous action, by directing attention to an agent's personal projects. Personal projects are constitutive elements of daily existence and are consequential for a…

Poor construct definition has characterized research on virtue, beginning with Hartshorne and May's honesty studies and continuing to the present. Recently, scholars have begun to define virtues in ways that improve the prospects for measuring virtue constructs, but a coordinated, programmatic approach is necessary for success in virtue…

The general questions are: what is virtue and how can it be cultivated? The specific focus is on the conceptions of virtue in the works of Immanuel Kant and John Rawls. Kant regarded virtue as a good will that is also strong enough to resist contrary passions, impulses, and inclinations. Childhood training can prepare children for virtue, but…

In "Two Conceptions of Virtue," Thomas Hill reconstructs the conceptions of virtue, and of proper moral upbringing, found in Kant and Rawls. Here I offer some brief reflections on these conceptions of virtue and its cultivation. I argue that Kant's conception of virtue is grounded in a mistaken conception of desire, and that this…

The expectation that schools resuscitate civic virtues and create a vibrant civic and public sphere competes with a more powerful contemporary demand on schools, namely, that they generate equal opportunity and mobility, especially for poor and minority youth. This equal opportunity is framed solely in the context of grades on standardized tests.…

Virtue epistemologists hold that knowledge results from the display of epistemic virtues--open-mindedness, rigor, sensitivity to evidence, and the like. But epistemology cannot rest satisfied with a list of the virtues. What is wanted is a criterion for being an epistemic virtue. An extension of a formulation of Kant's categorical imperative…

Catherine Elgin proposes a novel principle for identifying epistemic virtue. Based loosely on Kant's Categorical Imperative, it identifies autonomy as our fundamental epistemic responsibility, and defines the epistemic virtues as those traits of character needed to exercise epistemic autonomy. I argue that Elgin's principle fails as a…

Sigal Ben-Porath objects to the educational strategies of a number of high commitment charter schools, arguing that they do not pay sufficient attention to the need to develop and exercise the civic virtues of students. This response article highlights a number of philosophical disagreements concerning the traits of character that are central to…

In this article I outline an original form of ethical theory that I call exemplarist virtue theory. The theory is intended to serve the philosophical purposes of a comprehensive moral theory, but it is also intended to serve the practical purpose of moral education by structuring the theory around a motivating emotion--the emotion of admiration.…

Suffering has a complex role in social justice education. The alleviation or eradication of suffering is a goal of social justice education while, simultaneously, students suffer in the process of learning about the suffering of others. Educational theorists have attempted to resolve this paradox in various ways and the author of this article…

This article sketches the contours of a neo-Aristotelian account of education, justice, and the human good, organized around a sequence of three increasingly distinctive features of the Aristotelian understanding of respect for persons as rational beings. The first and second of these features bear on important aspects of educational justice,…

This article focuses on the turn towards the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's (1906-1995) ethical perspective in educational philosophy, which many theorists promise can promote an educational practice that is more sensitive of the diversity of teaching and learning, and the uniqueness of students and teachers. I call this into question by…